On The Roof

by BethAnn Caputo

I think of us,
Imagine a neon line painted on asphalt.
I claw at the boundary, stripped bare
Dig my finger nails deep
just to watch them bleed.

These places we have come to fear the worst,
turned inside out
could be a different world--
let the past leak down the gutter,
dream out loud.

But we forget that in people,
there is some devil.
No force, however strong
can weld a crooked pipe straight.

and it's cold
and it's cold
and it's cold

We are homesick most for what we have never known.

The Illusionist

by BethAnn Caputo

Show me how you do that trick.
The one where the stars in your mouth
turn to black holes and lost to them are
my tongue and the words you are too afraid to hear me say.

Somewhere,
there is a perfect ending where I know exactly what you are thinking
and I am more sleight of mind than ever.
I have mastered this game of hide and seek
and can make things appear out of nowhere,
long after they have vanished.

I can dive head first
over
and over
and over again
into shallow waters that spell words like
mistake and forsaken
and float to the surface, unscathed.
I am not shackled or hanging upside down
drowning in a pool of dazed morning afters, silver linings
and obstacles like the New Jersey Turnpike
that make it hard to get to you.

Saw me in half before you go this time,
and take with you the parts of me
that can’t let go.

Topographical Depiction

by BethAnn Caputo

I wonder could tomorrow be

the day we go back to that dark corner of the woods

where we once sat on stones and set fire to the skin of trees.

Limbs twisted together like vines, you fed me your thoughts with a spoon
and watched as I swallowed each one whole.
Just one more time, can we stand in front of the flames?
Bare and exposed, press our fingertips together
and feel them tremble until we become a melted coalescence,

a topographical mess of friction ridges,
like the complicated map I carry in my pocket,
the one only you know how to read.